Goddamnit.. why do japanize and chinese people always get the cool shit before us. We are like woah if the grocery store has popstickles. Well, at least we have Coke. You know we just recently got vanilla coke... We can't even be commercialized by 3rd world country raping global corporations properly.
You guys get shit like iphone and ipad first.
If its food oriented asians are interested, and especially filipinos lol.
Filipinos literally spent the greatest percentage of thier income on food.
They like to take western food concepts and turn them into thier own creations.
Japanese are more "visual" when it comes to food, while filipinos are more taste, they will travel great distances to get the proper ingredient etc.
What a westerner can not understand, is that food in asia is not just food. So a mother or grandmother when she cooks for her family is an expression of love.
When you are invited to a meal, it is not throw some steaks on the BBQ, bit literally can mean hours of preperation time, it is a way for people to show I appreciate your friendship. So that is why if you do not eat his food, it is a deep insult, literally you are saying I do not like you.
In america deals are made on the golf course. In asia they are made over the dinner table. This is where the importance of having a good wife (ie not some bargirl like most expats have) who has been trained by her mother to manage the servants and cook comes in. The food has to be prepared by you or your wife. It also is the reason why many asian women do extremely well in business. Some extended family houses (2 siblings live in house with older parents in a compound, often it might be 2-3 houses per say) have 10+ help. 2 drivers, 2 yayas (nanny), 3-4 maids, a cook, 1-2 gardeners etc. It is the woman's job to look after all of the help, and make sure they are doing thier jobs. The wife will say things like "you better do this or Sir will be very angry". "Sir does not like that". Occasionally one of the servants has to go talk to "Sir". Basically the maid is brought before you. You try and look very angry, while the wife screams at the maid in tagalog how we look after her, feed her, cloth her etc etc. (ok guilt is very important here). And how come she does not appreciate our house. Anyway after looking after a household, running a large company is a piece of cake
Very important times are things like "blessing of house", this is when you first construct a house, or if you just purchased a house. I had 10 women with my wife overseeing everything cooking and preparing. At 3am the dogs and pigs are butchered. I had 3 dogs and 3 pigs. I decided not to get goats. Then literally from 3am to 4pm when the party started the women made countless dishes. Over 75kg of rice was cooked, 25kg of different types of noodles etc. Community is very important in the rural areas. So this is a way of showing appreciation of the community. I am told for the blessing of my house over 1000 people come (i lost track there where people all over the place
)
After talking about basketball, or sabong (cockfighting), people love to talk about food in the same manner. Ways to cook food, different types of food etc.
And ofcourse as they all are talking about food, it always comes up that I am canadian. So someone always pops the question "tell us about food in canada". All eyes are focused on you. Initially I would tell them the truth, well we get a slab of meat, throw it on a BBQ burn the hell out of it and then do the same with some potatoes. And I would see massive disappointment in everyone.
Fortunately I learned to "lie" or deflect the truth. So I talk about roasting turkeys during thanksgiving, cranberry sauce, rhubbarb pie and pumpkin pie. Then ofcourse someone asks what is a "cranberry" or "rhubbarb" or a pumpkin. I then can elaborate on the truth (ok out and out lie) about how amazing cranberries,rhubbarb and pumpkins are. Sometimes I even tell them we go up in the mountains and pick the cranberries by hand (I have no fuking idea where cranberries come from). Ofcourse everyone is very amazed by exotic canadian/american cooking then
I have a nasty feeling that one day my cooking stories will get me in trouble.
